The Intruder
by elphabathedelirious32
Summary: Oneshot, bookverse. A scene from Malky's point of view. He recognizes the expression as vulnerable and open and filled with all the pain and longing of a death scream poignant with futility.


**A/N: I know Malky was supposed to be an Animal spy for the Wizard according to the people on the GM forums, _but _this was a school assignment- well, sort of- and I kind of appropriated it. It was supposed to be an essay from an unusual point of view, so I picked the cat, and made him a cat rather than a Cat, though judging by the intelligence of my cats- speaking of, HOW did my cat just open that door?- it's kind of the same. My cats are very very smart. I think they're privy to the inner workings of the universe and they just like to laugh at our thickheadedness. Anyway. HAH. HAH. HAH. It's a Wicked fanfiction for school credit! I WIN, EVIL ENGLISH TEACHER! I WIN!!! **

Intruder

_A Reworking of a Scene in _Wicked _by Gregory Maguire from the cat's Point of View_

She is back again, but she has not stomped up the stairs yet, as she usually does. She is at the door at the bottom of the stairwell, attempting to hold it shut and breathing hard from the effort; someone is out there and whoever it is wants in. There is yelling from outside of the door, but not angry yelling. The cat, living with this woman who does a lot of both kinds of yelling, knows the difference.

Finally, the woman curses and opens the door, sending a man-human sprawling over the threshold. They speak for a moment, she in the first of the only two tones she possesses: sarcastic and ranting. At last, the two of them climb the stairs, where the cat waits expressionlessly at the landing. The woman calls to the cat, with the name she has given him, and tries to imitate the natural sound of cats. She is better at it than some of her kind, at least, but her attempt is still rather pathetic to the cat's well-honed ears. Furthermore, he resents this man-human's intrusion, so he scampers ahead of the pair up the stairs and through the archway, as if to prove this makeshift house his dominion. The two humans keep speaking in their strange, annoying sounds, crisp and dissimilar and unflowing.

The woman reaches into the cupboard where the food is kept, making the cat's ears perk up in anticipation- perhaps this once she has brought something other than vegetables home? Perhaps…even fish? The cat's body tenses in anticipation as he watches slim green fingers close around the neck of a glass bottle of milk, as she pours it into a bowl, the thick inviting plopping sound of pouring liquid calling to him, her gentle summoning motion as she sets the bowl on the floor asking him to drink of it. The cat gives the man-human a haughty look- the woman has fed _him_ instead; clearly _he_, the cat, is in charge here.

The woman is clearly flustered, not her usual reserved and unflappable self, which makes the cat dislike the intruder even more. The woman is on her feet, pacing back and forth, thumping food almost angrily on the table in front of the man. Her voice grows higher, she twists her fingers anxiously. The cat is frightened by this sudden onslaught of emotion in this woman who has always before been steady and unaffected by the usual vagaries of human feeling. If only a few minutes in the presence of this intruder can upset his little universe so thoroughly, can make his human act so strangely, the cat is, for the first time, unsure of himself, of his place in his world, of his security.

The man stands, the woman's voice grows more distressed, more urgent. She gestures emphatically toward the archway, clearly both imploring and ordering the man to go. Hope rises in the cat's small, quickly pattering heart as it leaps up on the table for a better look, and to search for fish; perhaps the intruder will leave and never come back, and he and the woman will go on as before.

But then the cat catches sight of the woman's face, and though he is a cat he recognizes the expression as vulnerable and open and filled with all the pain and longing of a death scream poignant with futility. It is the look of kittens who have just lost their birth-blindness and the look of doomed prey all at once, and the cat knows: nothing will ever be the same.


End file.
